Cleansing wipes generally are sold in plastic tubs, tubes or other containers, and a user typically extracts a wipe for use by pulling the wipe through a hole or slot in the container. Preferably, the hole or slot is covered by a lid. Commonly, the plastic container or tub is sold pre-loaded with a supply of wipes. Once a consumer depletes the original supply of wipes, the user may discard the empty container and purchase a new pre-loaded container or tub. Of course, discarding the empty containers and purchasing new containers just to get a new supply of wipes tends to waste a considerable amount of material, especially plastic. Further, retailers must set aside a great deal of shelf space in order to stock enough pre-loaded containers or tubs to meet demand.
To address some of these problems, manufacturers have recently introduced products that reuse the original wipes container. Instead of stocking exclusively pre-loaded containers or tubs, retailers now can stock a supply of pre-loaded containers, along with a supply of refill cartridges. Typically, these refill cartridges are made out of a lower cost packaging material. Consequently, retailers can stock many more refill cartridges than pre-loaded containers for a given shelf space, thus making better use of the available retail space. Also, because the cleansing wipes are substantially uniform in size and shape across different manufacturers, most refill cartridges made by one manufacturer can be used with the containers or tubs of other manufacturers.
Furthermore, because of widely differing consumer tastes, manufacturers tend to make a wide variety of cleansing wipes. For example, some consumers desire scented wipes, while other consumers demand wipes that are free of all dyes, scents, or perfumes. Still other consumers desire wipes having lotions such as aloe vera, lanolin, or other materials, often with or without the addition of alcohol. Still other consumers want gentle wipes, or wipes free of any lotion, alcohol, or other additives. However, because the plastic containers that hold the wipes are typically opaque and colored, the wipes within the containers must be identified by a label on the exterior of the container. Thus, it is possible for a consumer to mismatch the type of wipe in a refill cartridge with the type of label on the container, resulting in a situation where a consumer may not know what type of wipe is in the container.